


Saint Claude

by Oneiron



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Songfic, Tattoos, bus rides
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:24:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7062484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oneiron/pseuds/Oneiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takumi is visiting his old home when, by chance, he runs into the most interesting person he's ever met, and changes his outlook on life.<br/>Songfic based on Saint Claude by French artist Christine and the Queens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saint Claude

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first ever piece of fiction uploaded to the Internet! I mus admit it only took me around an hour and a half or so to write and edit this first chapter, I hope it's good!  
> (Also go check out Christine and the Queens' music, she's an amazing artist!)

The light breeze off the nearby sea rustled Takumi’s hair as he stood solemnly near the lone street lamp at the bus stop. His mind wandered through the various happenings of his day as he awaited his savior to arrive and carry him from the abandoned streets on which he stood. He thought of the memories he had made in the very spot where he stood – from the time he and Sakura sold lemonade to weary travelers under the oppressive sun of summer to the time he had go into an argument with Ryoma and insisted that he was running away from home (he sat under the bus stop awning for two hours before Mikoto came and convinced him to stay). Now, the neighborhood was empty, save a small playground across the street and the street lamp Takumi currently shared his space in the universe with.

Takumi wasn’t sure why he kept returning to what was left of his old residence; he knew there was nothing he could do to reverse what had taken place there, especially not four years earlier. Then again, fourteen was such a young age to lose everything but your older sister, and grief leads people to do things they don’t understand, like sullenly lurking the street on which you used to live before the fire stole everything, as if to bring back what used to be. Sometimes, if Takumi closed his eyes, he could still hear the giggling of the neighborhood children – Sakura included; the sounds of lost life still reverberated deeply in his mind. 

Takumi would’ve stayed there, feeling nauseous after spending the bulk of the day on the emotional rollercoaster of nostalgia and grief that dominated his life, leaning heavily against the lamp post, if it weren’t for the sudden appearance of the harsh voice of the bus driver sitting impatiently in the driver’s seat, staring down at him through the open bus door. 

“You getting in, honey?” She inquired, her voice a paradoxical mixture of warmth and apathy.

Takumi blinked and quickly gathered himself, rushing onto the bus, nodding at the bus driver as he passed her seat. _Yes, sorry,_ he said to her in his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, out of a mixture of embarrassment and a general disinterest in speaking.

Once he was on the vehicle he stopped to take in his surroundings. The bus was completely empty, except for a lone figure huddled against a window in the back. Takumi glared around at the cold, empty metal benches, pondering whether or not he was tired enough to take a seat in one of them. He decided against it, opting rather to grab a hold of a nearby bar and stand, likely he normally did on public transport.

He stared out the window, watching as the bus steadily climbed a hill, slowly inching its way out of the now empty of fields that made up the Shirasagi district and towards the Izumo district, where he now called home. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the city lights and the passing trees – he hated to stare – but he couldn’t keep his eyes from trailing off to the mysterious man in the back of the bus.

He had short but shaggy blond hair, kept out of his eyes by a thin black hair band. His face was thin, with a pointed chin and angled cheeks, which focused all the attention on his large eyes, two pools of darkness accented by thick eyelashes. He wore a long, black shirt, with the right sleeve lazily rolled up the elbow and the other resting normally just above his wrist. His left arm rested vertically against the window, propping his relaxed head up, while his right arm nonchalantly held the top of the seat in front of him.

However, the most striking feature on the man, Takumi noticed, was the tattoo on his left wrist. It was of a lion, golden and proud, roaring. But the man’s sleeve blocked half of the tattoo, so the lion just appeared to be in the middle of a toothy smile, smiling right through Takumi’s eyes and into his soul. It had two, dark eyes to boot - much like its owner - and both glared right into Takumi’s as if mocking him, _You’re not the only lonely one here._

The tattooed man moved, and Takumi quickly turned the other way, fixing his gaze back on the passing buildings as the bus arced its way around a curb and onto Takumi’s new street. Takumi often stared at strangers, admiring their beauty, their obliviousness, coming up with far-fetched life stories for them in his head - _That man served in the military for thirty years and fell in love with a local where he was stationed only for her to be killed in an explosion or she’s secretly in love with her husband’s sister and is only married to him to be close to her_ – sometimes delving into (fictional) stories of others served as a quick and cheap escape from Takumi’s own lonely world. But he knew the embarrassment that came with them noticing was immense; he made sure they never knew he was watching them. 

He didn’t get a chance to turn back and look at the man again before the bus grinded to a halt at a small bus stop in front of a tall apartment complex. _Here’s my station,_ he thought to himself as he made the short walk from the pole where he stood to the door. As he stopped to scan his bus pass, he took a quick glance back at the man with the tattoo. He had turned so that the silver-haired boy could only see his face in profile; he was probably staring at something across the street, Takumi rationalized. Shaking his head of any lingering thought, Takumi descended the stairs onto the cold, dark street. The bus pulled off and continued on its path, taking with it the tattooed man.

Takumi told himself to forget about him. But as he found himself laying alone in his bed, staring at his ceiling, cautiously avoiding his worst nightmare, sleep, he realized that forgetting about that man and his tattoo would prove to be harder than he had thought. In the few minutes of which they were within proximity to each other, Takumi had felt a strange attraction to him. He kept thinking of the man’s face, the way his blond hair fell around his cheeks and framed him so perfectly, the way his dark eyes so easily held all his secrets, the way his lion could stare into you. They hadn’t shared a single word, but Takumi felt they were in the same boat – lost and alone. He thought again of the lion, of the way it looked at him, spoke to him. Maybe he hadn’t spoken to the tattooed man at all, but a message was shared on that bus ride. _We are so lonely, but we are not alone._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for getting through this first chapter! I intend for this to be at least 3 chapters long. Maybe 4. So please, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, share them with me! I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you give the song a listen!


End file.
